Netflix is highly anticipated Squid games The second season was poorly received, earning scathing reviews from disappointed critics.
The latest storyline follows the show’s protagonist Gi Hun (Lee Jung Jae), as he returns to the deadly games in search of revenge and a face-to-face with the game’s showrunner, Front Man (Lee Byung Hun).
The first season was received with great critical acclaim, including major accolades, such as historic wins at the 74th Emmy Awards, with Best Actor and Best Director up for grabs for Lee Jung Jae and creator Hwang Dong Hyuk.
However, the second season, nominated before its official release for the Golden Globes, disappointed critics, including those of The New York Times AND Rolling Stone.
Daniel Fienburg, television critic at The Hollywood journalistcriticized the season for losing sight of its vision and its full sense of wonder along the way.
“It’s a complete disappointment… devoid of the fun and whimsy that kept the first season from wallowing in its misery scenario, and entirely devoid of any new details or insights into the nature of the Game,” he wrote.
The seven-episode season, the critic continued, felt like “barely a season” and instead seemed to exist simply as a setup for the show’s final third season.
The sequel wasn’t all a flop, Fienburg argued, thanks to its style (which “remains intact, if stagnant”) and Lee Jung Jae’s “robust, if less entertaining” performances.
The critic, however, felt that the season greatly missed the mark: “It’s not on a fundamental level where Squid Game is broken, but the second season just doesn’t work,” he said.
Rolling Stone Critic Alan Sepinwall accused Hwang’s latest project of offering nothing new to say after the huge success of its first season, with calls for a blockbuster sequel so strenuous that it literally made the teeth fall out of his mouth.
“Nor, for that matter, does Squid Game have much new to say on the topic of income inequality, which is the crux of this macabre story,” Sepinwall wrote.
“It’s a social problem that has only gotten worse since the first season debuted, but the closest the new season comes to acknowledging any kind of change is the fact that one of the players, disgraced YouTube influencer Lee Myung-gi (Im Si-wan), bankrupted himself and many other competitors by advocating encryption.”
James Poniewózk a The New York Times he felt the show had hit a wall, or more accurately, a “red light”.
The critic felt that the showrunner was faced with a formidable fallback and faltering in the identity that has made him a fan favorite since the beginning, evident in the season’s “stall”.
“Is it the second season of a serial, continuing a larger plot? Is it a sequel to a blockbuster, offering its own twist on the thrills of the original?” he positioned.
“The Squid Game 2 it’s neither, in reality. It continues a story but does little in its seven hours to expand on it.”
